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Winning the race to market with a 64-bit processor was not just a vanity play to impress the computer chip cognoscenti. By hitting the streets first with a 64-bit capable x86 processor, AMD one-upped rival Intel.
It also worked to convince other systems vendors to follow Big Blue and lend their support to the Opteron.
Indeed, to the surprise of critics, who could recite a litany of
company missteps over the years, this was not a one-off event. As it
geared up for stiffer competition with rival Intel, AMD lined up the
likes of Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and many systems vendors to
use Opteron in their higher-end systems.
But to retain the momentum, AMD needs to stay ahead on cutting-edge chip design. Ruiz is pushing hard to promote the use of the dual-core Opteron and is powering forward with a plan to diversify into new market segments.
CNET News.com spoke with Ruiz about technology trends and what he envisions for AMD chips in consumer electronics. We also found out that Ruiz believes the era of the US$100 laptop PC may be on the horizon.
Q: When you look back over the last two years, since Opteron's introduction, what's your assessment?
Ruiz: We had a lot of expectations and dreams and hopes and goals...and
all that. Considering...that there was a lot of trepidation (by)
customers to even just show up--obviously the fear of Godzilla was very
strong--when I think what we've done in the last two years, I'm really
pleased with the progress.
It's pretty clear the enthusiasm of the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) community of what this technology is doing for them is pretty high. And also our expectations of being able to penetrate an almost impenetrable segment of the market back in those days--I'm real happy with where we are.
What was the company's original goal?
Ruiz: Our hope was
that by the end of 2004 we'd be at 10 percent of the market on the
server side. We were just slightly short of that, according to IDC. But
in the grand scheme of things, we feel pretty good.
Looking ahead, what are AMD's other goals?
Ruiz: When we set out two years ago...the decision we made was to sort
of flip the company upside down in terms of priorities. We felt that
the server/enterprise segment was incredibly important for us. It's a
very lucrative segment of the market for us to participate in...and
it's aimed right at the belly of the giant. We felt that we needed to
demonstrate to the outside--particularly to the enterprise--that we
were very capable of doing that, which was the hardest thing to do.
We set out to have a long-term strategy to become very relevant in that space, so that over a period of time, the enterprise would see two very strong players, as opposed to two years ago, when there was only one.
What did that involve?
Ruiz: Part of that revolves around
having a very strong technology road map and a very strong product road
map--which we believe we have. I think the introduction of dual core is
one of the steps that continue to demonstrate to (business customers)
that this is a long-term commitment we're making to the segment and
that this is a very high priority.
Look at the benchmarks and the data coming out of our customers. The dual-core product indicates we have actually widened the gap in terms of leadership. I feel this will continue. Our plans are to continue to out-innovate, in a customer-centric way, the technology and products in the server segment. That, combined with our strong partnering with customers, which I believe is getting stronger and stronger, will lead us to (become) a very relevant player in the enterprise (market). When do you think AMD chips will make it into the mainstream servers, desktops and notebooks that huge corporations buy? Ruiz: The server part of it is happening as we speak. We're already in a fairly significant part of Sun's, HP's and IBM's business, as well as Fujitsu-Siemens, Lenovo and others outside of the United States.
We expect to start seeing, for example, dual-core desktops before the
end of the year being fairly active in the marketplace. There, though,
I have to tell you that we have to make sure that the consumer
understands the value. For a number of consumers, it'll take some time
before the software and all the things that will make dual core really
great will actually play out.
We're surprised we haven't heard more about big companies, such as banks, adopting Opteron. Do they just not talk about it?
Ruiz: There's a little bit...of cautiousness on the part of
banks. If a bank were to talk about the fact that they committed to use
AMD technology, that could be interpreted--especially if it's an
investment banker--that they were actually endorsing AMD stock, which
can be confusing.
I think we're the preferred technology on Wall Street. Frankly, if you talk to any of the Wall Street firms, they'll tell you that they like what we do, and seven out of 10 of the top are using it. But you're right. They don't talk about it.
What about the communications space?
Ruiz: If by communications you mean the traditional communications
things...the answer is no in the near future. We will have
communications technology in our chipsets, especially around wireless
and broadband capability. But we're not doing anything that would put
us in the same competitive space as people like Qualcomm or TI.
So the effort is more in consumer electronics?
Ruiz: The way I would describe it is, because of our commitment to the
x86 architecture, we have an opportunity to be the premier company--if
we're not there already--in that architecture. Therefore, we can take
it to places that no others can, because they don't have the
intellectual property and the experience to do it.
So by staying focused on one architecture, we believe we can go all the way from a very low-cost consumer device all the way to a supercomputer.
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